Slice and bake cookies are cookies where the dough is prepared in advance and chilled until you’re ready to bake. The cookies are simply sliced off the log of dough and go straight into the oven. These types of cookie doughs are wonderful because they can be made well in advance, and you don’t need to bake the whole batch at once, since you can simply slice off as many pieces as you want to serve (or eat yourself) at a time.
This slice and bake is a butter pecan cookie. The dough is basically a shortbread dough, with a lot of butter and no leavening. It turns out cookies that are slightly crisp, very buttery and almost seem to melt in your mouth. The cookies actually taste like browned butter, since they are very buttery and have a really rich nuttiness from the toasted pecans that are mixed into the dough. They’re very simple, but very flavorful.
These cookies good on their own and are especially good with tea or coffee, but if you want to get creative, you can find some other uses for them. For instance, they make good ice cream sandwiches (with butter pecan ice cream, naturally) and you can dip them in white, milk or dark chocolate if you’re looking to dress them up a little bit.
Butter Pecan Slice and Bake Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup toasted pecans, chopped
In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Mix in vanilla extract, flour and salt, mixing just until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in pecans to evenly distribute.
Form dough into a ball and place on a sheet of wax paper. Using your hands, shape the dough into a log about 2 inches across or a little less. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours, or in the freezer until you’re ready to use it (it will last a couple of weeks).
Preheat oven to 350F.
Slice dough into slices that are no more than 1/4-inch thick, allowing the dough to soften slightly before slicing if you are using frozen dough. Arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cookies will not spread very much, so you don’t need to leave too much room between them.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned around the edges.
Cool on sheet for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes about 3 dozen.
Ciaochowlinda
July 8, 2009These look crispy and crunchy and deliciously nutty.
Heather Peskin
July 8, 2009How wonderful – just my cup of tea! I love slice and bake cookies; they are so much prettier than drop cookies. Thanks for this super recipe.
Rosa
July 8, 2009What gorgeous cookies! I love pecans…
Cheers,
Rosa
hungrynez
July 8, 2009Simple, yet tasty and texture is amazing!
Lizzy
July 9, 2009These look delicious! I want to make them for a birthday picnic I’m having in a couple of weeks. How well in advance do you think I could make the dough? Can it be frozen?
Thanks!
Lizzy
http://www.lizzygoesdutch.blogspot.com
Lizzy
July 9, 2009Whoops! You already mentioned that. Guess I missed it somehow. Mmmm, can’t wait to make these!
Lizzy
http://www.lizzygoesdutch.blogspot.com
amy
July 9, 2009Two of my favorite things: butter and pecan! These look great, thanks!
Sophia
July 9, 2009Hi! I love your blog, and I make a lot of recipes from it. Would you mind if I posted some the recipes from here on my blog, as long as I say that they are from here? Thanks – Sophia
Sam
July 9, 2009Oh, yummy. I can’t even imagine how delicious these would be dipped in dark chocolate. I must make these immediately…
jane@reminder
July 10, 2009these sound great…I never realized Butter Pecan Slice were so easy (and this is coming from someone who has made 100’s of homemade, boiled, soft pretzels in one day. Awesome!
Jennifer
July 10, 2009That looks mouth watering and delicious. I will have to try out this recipe.
Suzy
July 11, 2009Sounds simple but I bet they are OH so good. I love pecans more than any other nuts when it comes to baking.
Jen @ MaplenCornbread
July 11, 2009I have a freezer full of pecans that would be perfect!! Thanks for this great recipe!
Farmgirl Susan
July 11, 2009Oh, I know someone who is going to love these! 🙂
Panu
July 12, 2009Oh wow, these sound so good. I love pecans. And it looks to me that these just insist to have a layer of chocolate on top. Perhaps dark chocolate. Must try.
Aloe Vera Wissen
July 16, 2009hi there,
here in Germany the cookies are always hard, you won’t find any soft cookie here in any store.
So I would like to say thank you for some good receipts for a selfmade cookie.
Best regards from Germany and sorry for my bad english
Simone
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July 24, 2009Great site. Keep doing.
mdweb
August 24, 2009Thanks for the contibution!!!
raincity
August 26, 2009u r godsent dude.. THANKS
padova
August 27, 2009Great thank You !
Good job 🙂
candle
August 27, 2009Very nice! Thank you so much!
temsrl
August 28, 2009Thank you very much 😀
pope
August 28, 2009great!
snapcl
August 29, 2009It is the coolest site, keep so.
creain
September 2, 2009Thanks for this!
dmtcoza
September 2, 2009COOL…!!!!
lapiet
September 3, 2009thanks you so much
forto
September 4, 2009Ive been looking for some of these forever. thanks!
vision
September 8, 2009I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job
Kristen
September 8, 2009These are baking right now. I couldn’t help but taste some of the dough after it had been chilled and ready to cut. OH MY, is it delicious. Thank you for the recipe! 🙂
nfaze
September 8, 2009Thanks!!
fabrika
September 13, 2009Good Job!!
Julie
December 8, 2013Are you sure this calls for only 1 cup of butter? I tried making these and the dough would not form a ball it was way to crumbly. I had to add another half a stick of butter before it would form a ball.
Nicole
December 8, 2013Julie – Yes, I’m sure that it only calls for one cup of butter. If the dough seems too crumbly, that might be because of the pecans, but with only 2 cups of flour to that 1 cup of butter, you should be able to press it into a ball. I’m glad you were able to get your dough to come together!